Often times the distance one must travel is seemingly too short or too inconvenient to ride a bus or subway or to drive a car, but too long to walk. These circumstances present opportune times to ride a bicycle. Moreover, people living in large, mid-sized, or even small metropolitan areas often find it more convenient to travel around the city by bicycle, which provides an efficient mode of transportation in such crowded areas. Accordingly, in today's crowded urbanized areas, it is desirable to use a bicycle for traveling short to medium distances. A bicycle provides personal transportation, can carry small loads, is easy and convenient to maneuver and park in crowded places, and is low in cost to purchase and maintain. Automobiles consume large amounts of fossil fuels, create pollution, are a safety hazard, and are costly to maintain and park. Motorcycles have all of the problems of automobiles (though perhaps to a lesser degree) but present a greater safety hazard when operating at high speeds. It is also beneficial to use a bicycle as a means of transportation in crowded cities as it alleviates, among other things, the need to locate parking for a car, pay for parking a car, and abide by the schedule and inconvenience of public transportation.
Although riding a bicycle for transportation can alleviate the above drawbacks, bicycles typically are bulky and inconvenient for portability and storage. This inconvenience of portability and storage often results in bicycles being left outside, leaving them susceptible to theft. To make even greater use of bicycles beyond just point-to-point transport, it would be desirable to have a bicycle that could be quickly folded so that it can be transported inside the trunk of a car or as baggage on a train or airplane; so that it could be used locally at a remote destination. Foldable bicycles have an advantage of a relatively compact arrangement for storage and/or transport, making them popular with users wishing to reduce storage space, such as commuters, recreation enthusiasts, and campers, among others. However, known folding bicycles have myriad shortcomings. For example, in general, the large size of the folding bicycles of the prior art prohibit the storage of these folding bicycles within a closet, or a small area and make it difficult to easily and conveniently fit them into a suitcase or carrying-bag for transporting. Moreover, many of the known folding bicycles do not provide all of the qualities of being low in cost, easy and simple to fold into a small volume such as a suitcase, and sturdy and reliable to use. Many other folding bicycles necessitate the removal of one or both wheels, which is an inconvenient and complex procedure. Some folding bicycles that have sturdy folding frame parts are very expensive and/or utilize heavy metal parts that increase the overall weight. Others that are less costly have folding parts that are not as sturdy, do not fold easily or well, or are excessively heavy.
In some conventional or manual folding bicycles, folding joints are situated in the central area of the frame, such as within one or more of the down tube, top tube, seat tube and head tube, or bearing tube. A disadvantage of such an arrangement is that the bicycle's ability to fold into a compact volume is dramatically reduced. A further disadvantage is that known folding bicycles have frames that frequently are smaller than the frames of a comparable standard non-folding bicycle. This reduces the ergonomic suitability for a rider. A result of this for many riders is a decrease in the distance that can be ridden with comfort.
Current folding bicycles typically have pedals, thus requiring the user to exert a substantial amount of energy to ride. Exerting the amount of energy necessary to ride a bicycle often results in the user sweating upon arrival at his or her destination. Because riding a bicycle causes the rider to sweat, the user often must dress down and change into appropriate clothing upon arriving at his or her destination. This is yet another drawback of current folding bicycles.
Electric bicycles are becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. However, it is laborious for a bicycle rider to carry a folded electric bicycle because electric bicycles are generally heavier than typical bicycles due to the additional weight of the electric motor, battery pack, and associated components. Moreover, due to the bulky design, electric motor, battery pack, and associated components, it is difficult to fold current electric bicycles to a compact and portable size. Thus, the need for improvement still exists.
There is therefore a need for a folding bicycle and method of use that overcomes some or all of the previously delineated drawbacks of prior folding bicycles.